Some mobile or handheld electronic devices (e.g., personal digital assistants or PDAs, tablet personal computer or tablet PC, etc.) typically include hardware buttons and a touchscreen. The touchscreen can be used to display a “virtual” keypad, keyboard or other input mechanism graphics (also referred to herein as “virtual buttons”) that can be activated by the user (e.g., by using a finger to press a button) to perform input functions.
Due to the small size and power saving designs of typical mobile electronic devices, such devices generally have some undesirable limitations. For example, a typical mobile electronic device's display is relatively small, forcing the displayed virtual buttons to be relatively small, which tends to increase a user's difficulty in using a finger to pressing a virtual button. Thus, many such mobile electronic devices suggest the use of (and may even provide) a stylus so that the user can accurately activate the desired virtual button. Also, the user generally has to look at the display in order to activate the desired virtual button (as opposed to hardware buttons that may be identified tactilely in some applications) because there are no tactile indications of the boundaries between the virtual buttons. In addition, to save power, the display's backlight may be turned off for significant periods of time (e.g., when the mobile electronic device has not been used for a selected time period). When the backlight is turned off, a user may have difficulty seeing the virtual buttons.